Superfoods for Spoonies

When you live with a chronic illness, you’ll gratefully cling to anything that can provide relief against the symptoms that curtail your quality of life day in, day out. Prescribed medications are the most obvious example, although there’s an effective, more natural remedy in the form of ‘superfoods’ which contain pain-relieving qualities.

If you are a ‘spoonie’, namely someone who endures a chronic illness (one which is likely to go unnoticed by almost everyone else), superfoods such as garlic, ginger, turmeric and salmon can be nothing short of a godsend. They contain vital antioxidants which soothe the symptoms of chronic pain and they are very easy to include in almost any healthy recipe.

Depending on the exact nature of your chronic illness, it’s important to know which foods are essential for a pain-relieving diet and what should be avoided at all costs. Generally speaking, natural fruit and vegetables or food with a rich iron or fiber content will do a lot of good, while red meat, sweets and sugary items will set you back in your attempts to combat chronic pain.

This infographic from Burning Nights (http://www.burningnightscrps.org/crpsrsd/diagnosis-prognosis) identifies seven superfoods that provide effective pain relief and advise on dietary requirements for some of the most common chronic illnesses.